Iván Sándor - Legacy

The physicist makes a sign of the cross. Come, he says, or we’ll get soaked.

The news about the possible incineration of the ghetto got to the protected houses before I did. By the time I arrived there had already been a lot of suicides. In the house at number 35 St István Park a woman had thrown herself off the fourth floor. In other Spanish houses the men had decided to acquire arms. If I were certain that we had enough available weapons I myself would have given the order to attack. I think that the police might even fight on our side … I ran to see Ernő Vajna, the Minister of Internal Affairs, at the City Hall. Underground I found Wallenberg and Peter Zürcher of the Swiss Embassy. They had also come to ask Vajna to suspend the transfer of their protectees to the city ghetto. I asked them to let me speak first … I told him right away that further resistance made no sense and would only cause more death and the destruction of the city. I told him that an immediate capitulation would obligate the victors to show greater understanding, and that it would make it possible to put a stop to the bands sacking the city. I tried, for a long time, to make him understand that by now the war was lost and that what was happening was senseless and shameful … Vajna replied that he refused to talk about surrender. According to him the city must be defended to the last man … (From the diary of Giorgio Perlasca)

There is always someone in the bathroom. I have got used to looking away if someone is sat on the toilet, and it was worse in the brickworks where one had to squat next to others. Évie’s mother carries her in whenever she needs to use the toilet or washbasin. It’s not just her legs that are thin; she is generally very skinny. She must be very light, but I can also see how strong Aunt Klári is. She carries sacks and lifts children. When she is with Éva she talks quietly, but at other times she shouts. It’s not that she wants to, as I gather from the way that she smiles while she is shouting.

The physicist says to her that if needs be he will carry Évie to the bathroom. Don’t be silly, Laci, says Aunt Klári. You have enough to do lugging yourself around. He takes off his spectacles is the same way as when he makes notes, picks Éva up and really does carry her around with the greatest ease. He stands guard before the door in the hall while she is on the lavatory and tells me to stand in the door to our room to stop anyone else from entering.

In the main room the physicist and Aunt Klári draw up two of the chairs beside the big sideboard and sit down hand in hand; they must be very fond of each other. Meanwhile it is possible for me to grab a few minutes with Vera in Évie’s room. Previously no one else had been allowed to do so.

Mother says that Uncle Laci had been trying for a position at the university; his wife was with her parents in the village of Érd, just beyond Buda. He was unable to get to her there, but he had thought that he could reach the university, which was perhaps safer, but Aunt Klári had kept him back. She had heard her shouting at him, Laci, that’s enough of your nonsense. You’re not going one step further. Quick march into the house.

Father is allocated to the guard at the gate, so I go down with him. It is a three-man guard; they wear ICRC armbands. They take over from the previous shift, and the warden instructs them that they can only allow in those who can show they have papers from the legation. If there is a pounding on the door they had best step aside because a shot might be aimed at the gate.

I set off to look for Baritone. I want to know his name, and I may ask him for one of his revolvers after all, but I can find him nowhere.

The warden and Uncle Laci are playing chess in the bathroom, with Uncle Laci sitting on the closed toilet and the warden on the rim of the bath, the pocket chess set being on Uncle Laci’s knees.

I go downstairs again. I can hear a singing voice from the cellar.

Baritone is standing in the middle and singing, his arms spread out, his head thrown back. The flame of the lamps is quivering; the shadow of his outstretched arms can be seen on the wall. The man who was said to be amnesiac is standing next to him with one of Baritone’s arms almost brushing his face, as if he had not even noticed him, and sitting under the other arm is a young girl.

He is singing Papageno’s aria from The Magic Flute — that was another opera I saw performed by OMIKE, and very interesting it was, too. Fair-haired and with an oval face, the little girl is entranced as she listens to the singing. I can see many bearded faces. Father has not shaved for a long time now, but he is not sporting much of a beard. He said yesterday that even as a young man he did not have much growth at a time when other boys would be wearing a moustache at the very least. One joke that the other lads played on him in Kiskunhalas was to assure him that he needed to rub chickenshit on his upper lip to make it grow better.

Baritone clutches his hands to his heart and bows deeply. A few people applaud. The fair-haired girl is laughing.

We go out into the stairwell, and I tell him that we have not yet introduced ourselves. I am Gyuri, he says, so I, too, tell him only my given name.

You sang wonderfully.

His eyes are glowing. Now I don’t see them as being dark so much as coal-black.

Papageno was a role Andor Lendvai sang. But there were only two performances. The very last two performances.

I was lucky to catch it, then; I had no idea it was one of the last two performances they gave.

I have lost any desire to talk about the revolver.

The warden and Uncle Laci are still playing chess in the bathroom.

Our roommate, the little girl’s mother, has obtained a jug of drinking water and asks who would like a drink. Uncle Laci says put it away for the children.

The doctor whom I had got to know in the cellar comes out from seeing Évie and says something to Aunt Klári. He reports to Évie’s father that things are fairly quiet in the cellar. There have been no more deaths; the amnesiac is an ex-first lieutenant. You know, he says, he has now withdrawn completely. All he says to anyone is Who are you? and has given his medals away to children.

That’s perfectly in order, says Uncle Laci. At least he’s honest and doesn’t hide the fact that he recalls nothing. The whole country is suffering from amnesia; here no one ever remembers anything, but they put on this act of knowing everything. When he is feeling irascible his words become bitty; his teeth are bad, with some black and quite a few missing. His glasses have only one arm, and he flails them around in his hand.

The doctor returns to the cellar. He says he will give the morning’s injections; he still has two days’ worth of supplies.

Uncle Laci declares checkmate. He says it could be seen to be coming three steps before; it was bound to happen, having the castles in that position was impregnable even if two lesser pieces were brought into play. He picks up his notebook and lists for the warden’s benefit the bad moves he had made, telling him that he himself had been looking at sequences three moves ahead. If you commit an error, then you should be working out the moves from there, he says. You assessed your position badly, so your sequence of moves was also bad.

The warden says that the game was still open up to the pen-ultimate move.

Poppycock, says Uncle Laci. You didn’t see what led to the pen-ultimate move; you have to look for where the mistake began. If you don’t locate that, then that means you’re heading for the end from the very start.

This isn’t physics, Laci, it’s chess, says the warden.

Rubbish, my friend. Of course, it’s chess. If it were physics you would long be dead. Rematch?